The Better Man
by dragonflybeach
Summary: One Shot. The thoughts of Lorcan and Lysander's unknown father after seeing them in Diagon Alley with their stepfather.


A/N - as a rule, I am militantly anti-Neville&Luna. But I read a story last night, called It Takes a Man by Diary, in which an abandoned and pregnant Luna asks Neville to be the godfather of her baby, and the evil plot bunny in my head took this idea and ran with it.

Diary has very graciously given me permission to link to her story but please keep in mind that this is only one possibility. She never says who the father is, and if she writes a companion story making someone else the father, I'd love to read it.

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><p>Slamming the front door, he stomped down the hall, grumbling to his house elves that he did not want to be disturbed this evening. He slammed the door of his study and flung a spell to lock it behind him. The bottle of firewhiskey he kept in the bottom desk door was retrieved, and three fingers' worth poured into a crystal tumbler, because it just wasn't polite for gentlemen to drink straight from the bottle. He draped himself into the armchair, leg thrown over one side, whiskey bottle dangling from the fingers hanging off the other side, and stared into the fire as he took a long drink.<p>

The Longbottoms had been in Diagon Alley this evening. The five of them browsed the shoppes, smiling and laughing together and making references that those outside the family did not understand. Professor Neville, who had given up being an Auror to teach Herbology to snot nosed kids at Hogwarts. His lovely wife Luna, the wizarding world equivalent of the Crocodile Hunter, who spent her free time stomping through godforsaken wildernesses in search of creatures no one ever heard of. Their three beautiful children, the twin boys who were the image of their mother, and an adorable little girl who was the carbon copy of her father.

Thank whatever power was out there that the boys did not take after their father.

Because Neville Longbottom wasn't their father.

His mind drifted back to a cold day in his seventh year. He had pranked that Irish idiot, thrown a stray ingredient into his cauldron during potions. The other Slytherins laughed. Professor Slughorn had not found it quite so funny when the cauldron had exploded, splattering orange goo to drip from the fixtures in the room. He had found himself in detention that afternoon. Looney Lovegood had wandered in, seeking Slughorn's help in with a potion she wanted to make. Slughorn quite frankly hadn't wanted to be bothered with either of them, so he solved both problems with one solution. His detainee, who the professor had to grudgingly admit was rather talented in potions, would help the little nutcase, while Slughorn went to do, well, whatever.

They actually had figured out the ingredient she needed rather quickly. But afterwards, she hadn't left.

He wasn't stupid. He had seen the little glances. How she made eye contact and stared a little too long sometimes. The shy smiles when he passed her in the hallways. He had caught Luna Lovegood's fancy.

In a perfect world, they might had have a school romance. Held hands between classes, sneaked a few snogs before curfew, sipped tea in Hogsmeade. In one of those insufferable romance novels Pansy read, true love would have conquered all and the two of them would have lived happily ever after.

This wasn't a perfect world or one of Pansy's books. She was the resident lunatic of Ravenclaw, half blood, and Potter sympathizer. He was a dyed in the wool pureblood, son of a Death Eater, and training to become one himself. He could never allow himself to become involved with her.

But that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy her company this evening. He could tell the world that his punishment was to have to help her with her potion. His friends didn't have to know that entailed the worship in her eyes, the smile only for him, the compliments that built his ego. They didn't have to know that in talking to her, he actually found her quite brilliant. She was intelligent and entertaining and had unique perspectives on many subjects. If they asked, he would tell them the reason he had sneaked down to the kitchen to nick some sandwiches and butterbeers was because they had worked on her potion through supper. If anyone wondered why they had taken their food down to the boathouse, eating on the dock while looking up at the stars and the moon, well, Slughorn didn't say they had to stay in the classroom, just to help Luna with her potion. So he made sure that every so often he mentioned her potion.

When she smiled up at him through her thick eyelashes, the moon reflecting off her hair, he had to admit she was pretty. Blame it on autumn fever, the Hunter's Moon, teenage hormones, or just plain lust, but he had leaned in to kiss her. And she kissed back. He had become progressively bolder, deepening the kiss, slipping a hand under her shirt, pushing her back to lay on the rough wood. She didn't stop him, so he kept going. Until he took her virginity that night.

He had feared she would turn into some psycho stalker. She hadn't. As far as anyone else knew, nothing between them had changed. She returned to her little world, and he was still trudging through his own.

Four weeks later, she slipped him a note in the hallway. Simple and straightforward, asking him to meet her at the boathouse that night. He went, hoping she was looking for a repeat performance. He was, of course, a teenage boy without a regular girlfriend.

No clothes were shed the second night at the boathouse. She told him she was late. Having no sisters, he had no idea what the hell she was talking about. She had to explain it to him.

He had been stunned. He had been frightened. He had been angry. More at himself than at her, honestly.

In the end, he told her he was sorry, but if she was expecting, she was on her own. Simple and straightforward, just as her note had been. He didn't go into details, that he would be ridiculed for getting involved with a blood traitor, that his father would never accept her child, that he had an arranged marriage in his future, that he was just too young and too scared to do this. She just nodded and smiled and _thanked_ him.

Because she really was crazy.

She hadn't come back to school after Christmas. She was captured by the Death Eaters, held prisoner as leverage against her father. His heart had filled with dread, the fear that one day, she would spill his secret to ensure her own safety. She hadn't, apparently. She hadn't let even the slightest hint of emotion flicker across her face when he saw her the first time in the dungeon.

Later he heard that Longbottom had stepped up and taken responsibility for her baby. Two babies, it turned out. Longbottom. The bumbling idiot who was most likely to get lost in his own closet and wet himself was now the father of his children.

He locked it all away in the back of his mind and went on with his own life. He didn't think of Luna, her sons, or Longbottom.

Until one day, maybe two years ago, when he saw them together. Guilt pierced his soul that the simpering Gryffindor buffoon was buying _his_ sons their first brooms.

He had gotten drunk that night, probably more drunk than he had ever been in his life. He showed up at Blaise's house at 2 in the morning and poured the whole story out. Blaise, who had always been wise beyond his years, had quoted Charles Dickens and told him that everything works out for the best. That he had been the better man, to give up his children so they could have a better life. To give them to Longbottom, who was obviously a good father to them.

He let himself believe Blaise's pretty words. He went on with his life again, justifying his actions in his own mind.

But tonight, seeing the happy family together, he had to face the truth.

Neville Longbottom was a much better man than Theo Nott would ever be.


End file.
